ECHO Comments Archive

"I monitor a commodity, so the web site would be more useful to me if I could find information by commodity or material instead of by geographic location."
- Federal government user

"I strongly support the public availability of ECHO through the EPA web site. I believe the information available will become highly valued by citizens with concerns or questions regarding clean air, water quality, or hazardous waste compliance. The availability of ECHO is an essential extension of the The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Public regulators cannot be solely responsible for the environmental quality of our nation. It is long standing fact that citizens must also participate in this process. Public access to ECHO will ensure that citizens will have vital information readily available to them. This access will not only help with enforcement of NEPA, but also alleviate the concerns and fears of many citizens, thereby saving valuable time of regulatory staff and employees of facilities that might be under question. Having facility information easily available might save countless hours to a facility, whom might otherwise be harassed for information on enforcement or compliance issues by a citizen. I believe the public availability of ECHO through the EPA web site will be beneficial to all persons of concern, enforcement agency staff, regulated facility staff, and private citizens."
- Unaffiliated user

"The information contained in this database, regarding our facility, is very confusing... I suggest you take the web site off-line until data entry procedures that lead to errors are corrected."
- Regulated entity user

"1. on each report there should be a data accurate as of ___ (date) footnote for each record. By the time agencies collect data and EPA receives and inputs it, months or years may have passed. The public would be better served if a data collection date were available. 2. Data interpretation - there should be an explanation of what the data means (i.e., a major violation means ____)"
- Commercial user

"Thanks for hosting this site. Recommend that EPA explain, on the home page, where the data is derived from and the differences between this site, OTIS and IDEA. Recommend that keyword operators be used to search for facilities and include sub-titles in searches. Operators would be: "and","or" etc."
- Federal government user

"That [error correction process] was so much easier than I anticipated. I really didn't expect the error notification system to work, at least not at this early date. As a representative of industry, or at least of our company, I can say that now I am in favor of the new ECHO system."
- Regulated entity user

"...Our industry reps have indicated that this [incorrect violation data] is a common problem with this new EPA database. We reccomend that EPA only post data that has been quality checked and assured to be correct. Thank you."
- Regulated entity user

"Also, you should put the facility's name at the top of the detailed form."
- EPA user